


Antivan Summer

by greyvvardenfell



Series: The Gold to My Silver [19]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/greyvvardenfell
Summary: Reydis struggles in the heat of an Antivan summer.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Brosca, Zevran Arainai/Warden
Series: The Gold to My Silver [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764202
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Antivan Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic from ZevWarden Week 2019

A trickle of sweat followed the curve of Reydis’s cheek, bisecting her brand. She felt it drip, rolling down the track left by all the other droplets that had made their way from her thick hair to her neck and lower still, unimpeded by clothing or bedcovers. Her mind melted into simple thoughts, fragments of feelings and phrases dominated by one word: _heat_.

The peak of the Antivan summer reigned with a molten fist. Seashore breezes did little to sway the sun from baring its teeth, only adding moisture to the stifling air and weighing it down. The first day, Zevran had promised that this spell wouldn’t last long, smiling fondly at his beloved as Reydis shielded her eyes and glared out over the ocean. By the end of the week, though, even he was beginning to fear for her health as the heat sapped more and more of her energy, reducing her to a sluggish mess sprawled in the shade of their bedroom.

“ _Mi amora_?” Zevran called from the doorway, his voice cutting through the cobwebs of summer haze in Reydis’s mind. She blinked more sweat from her eyes and lifted her head.

“How the fuck do you, or anyone, for that matter, deal with this every year?” she asked flatly, dragging one hand across her forehead only to stop halfway through and grimace in disgust. “I can’t even get it off me, look! My palms are too sweaty to get the sweat off my face. Ugh!”

Zevran chuckled as he crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. He took her hand, though she tried to pull it away, and wrapped her fingers in the cool rag he’d brought with him. “Ah, my dear, it will get easier every year. And we are no strangers to a little sweat, are we?” He cocked an eyebrow suggestively.

Reydis wrinkled her nose at him. “Sweating’s only fun if you earn it. Just laying here, breathing? That’s not worth the laundry.”

“We could make it worth the laundry, though, could we not?” Zevran slid closer, moving the cloth to the back of her neck to draw her head into his hands. He gazed at her with half-lidded golden eyes, gently scratching at her scalp through her sweat-slick hair.

Reydis’s eyelids fluttered closed in response and she leaned back into his touch. “If you want to stay in here, you can,” she mumbled. “But I don’t have it in me to do anything.” One eye peeked open, catching his gaze. “And no, I didn’t word it that way on purpose.”

He laughed, fully and openly in the way Reydis couldn’t help but be swept up in too. He sat back, letting her short hair slide through his fingers, and slowly wiped down the rest of her pale, bare skin with the rag as their laughter died away into companionable silence. “I will stay with you for a time, _mi amora_ , if you will have me. It is indeed cooler in here than the rest of the house, and even I will admit that this time of year becomes tedious after a while,” he said as he finished and slipped off the bed.

“Tedious? _Tedious_? I would take boredom over melting out of my skin, Zev.” Reydis scoffed, shifting back to sit upright. “Fuck, I’d even go back to Orzammar if it meant getting away from the sun.”

Zevran tossed the cloth out the door towards the kitchen and glanced back at her, eyebrows arched in surprise. “You would return to the city built over a large pool of lava to escape the heat? I must admit, your logic escapes me.”

“It’s not all over lava! Dust Town always felt like an autumn afternoon, same temperature all the time. It’s like that underground. Nice and cool. Ancestors, I’d kill for that right now. I’m not built for this shit.” Reydis tipped her head back against the wall as another drop of sweat made its way down her temple and across her cheek. She sighed in resignation.

The bed dipped as Zevran rejoined her, his hand still blessedly cool from the rag he’d brought as it rested on her thigh. “Perhaps next year, then, we can take this time to travel? I have heard good things about southern Orlais. And there is always Ferelden, if we choose.”

Reydis heard the concern masked by his lighthearted suggestion and frowned, reaching for his hand and intertwining his fingers with her own. “I don’t regret settling here,” she said abruptly.

Zevran startled, both at her tone and her declaration, and opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but Reydis cut him off.

“I mean it. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you. We belong here.”

“But Orza—”

“Oh, fuck Orzammar. I said when we left during the Blight I’d never live there again, and I meant that too.” Reydis blushed, pink spreading across her face. “Well… I’m sorry, Zev. You know how I get when I’m— when I don’t want— when I feel gross. This heat and all this sweating and not having the energy to do anything makes me feel so… gross.” She met his gaze and her blush intensified, burning down her neck to her chest. “I don’t want you to think that. I know you don’t. I know!” She broke eye contact and crossed her arms over her bare chest, leaving Zevran’s hand behind. “I just get snippy. And I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that.”

“You do not have to apologize, _amora_ ,” Zevran said softly. He stopped himself from reaching for her hand again by tracing circles over the jut of her ankle; she would uncover herself when she was ready. “I understand. I…” He paused, searching for words. “I know I do not need to say this, but I feel I should anyway: there is nowhere I would rather be than with you, either. Antivan summer or Fereldan winter or any other weather that wishes to kill us, I will be beside you through it all and more, my love. My Reydis.”

Reydis’s heart swelled and despite the heat, she threw herself into Zevran’s arms, beaming. “I love you,” she murmured against his ear.

“And I, you.” He pulled her tighter against his chest and held her until she broke away and sat back.

“Oh… I got you wet,” she observed, trying to keep the revulsion out of her voice.

Zevran looked down at himself. His thin white shirt stuck to his skin in several places, dampened by the closeness of their embrace. He shrugged and pulled it off over his head, tossing the shirt aside. “So you did.”

Reydis winced. “Ugh, that’s so gro—”

“Ah, ah.” Zevran shook his head. “No more of that, I think. You said yourself you were not built for these temperatures, so let us not begrudge your body what release it can find from them, yes?”

Reydis grumbled under her breath for a moment more before acquiescing. “Fine. You’re right.”

“And, indeed, as you also mentioned…” he trailed off, scanning her slowly as he inched closer, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “There is nothing about you I find ‘gross,’ my dear. Especially not your sweat, and especially not when it finds its way onto me.”

Reydis rolled her eyes but leaned into him, hooking a hand behind his neck to pull him into a kiss. He responded immediately, his smile fading into a happy groan as he found her thick, plush hips and gripped tight, reveling in the sheen of perspiration across her skin. After a moment, Reydis broke away, skimming her hands down Zevran’s chest. “Go get more of those rags,” she whispered hoarsely. “Cold as you can. We’re gonna need them.”


End file.
